17 February 2013

Complete Windows 8 Guide



Windows 8 proved that its better than its predecessors windows 7 ,XP and Vista.In this article we will list out all the Tutorials and How to Guides related to Windows 8 Operating System.


Downloading Windows 8:


Microsoft first released the preview editions of windows 8 then finally released the Professional Edition on August 1st 2012.Since its release it has got a great hype.



Installation:



You can install windows 8 on your computer in different ways based on your need and convenience.



  • Install Windows 8 on virtual box to test its features.

  • You can mount ISO image of downloaded windows 8 edition and format your PC with usual bootable CD method.

  • In case if you dont want to go ahead with Bootable CD method then you can also install windows 8 via usb/pendrive.

  • You can also run Windows 8 in parallel to the existing OS on your PC.All you have to do is to format your PC using the same traditional bootable method but here you have to choose a different hard drive i.e Other than C Drive which is already loaded with the existing Operating system.So you have to choose drive other than C while formatting your personal computer.


Windows 8 Activation and Keys:



Almost all the editions of windows 8 comes with trial period.Windows 8 pro edition comes with a 90 days trial.





Windows 8 Customization:



Windows 8 itself is a very colourful and attractive operating system.It also offers many features to customize windows 8 based upon your interest.




Windows 8 Video Tutorials:

















Final Words:


Here we have listed all the basic guides to get started with Windows 8.If you want any more guides let us know in your comments we will update the article with what you want.




Hokrain Is The Coolest Audio Player That You’ve Never Heard Of [Windows]



audio playerEvery month or so, I’ll come across a piece of software hidden in the depths of the internet that really hits me as a surprise. How are some of these applications so unpopular?


I’ve preached on my loyalty to Winamp Lite in a previous article. It’s old and many would consider it to even be deprecated, but it’s always done the job for me. When I’m listening to music downloaded to a local drive, I don’t need Spotify or iTunes in charge of my music. However, for the past week, I’ve slowly started to fall in love with a new, free, and portable alternative to Winamp Lite that seems to incorporate the same elements of simplicity while also offering some really awesome extra functionality. Let me tell you about Hokrain!


Download Hokrain


First worth mentioning is the website that Hokrain calls home. Though I’ll echo and help explain much of it in this article, Hokrain’s website is one of the best examples of a one-pager that I’ve ever seen. All of the information that you’d be interested in, including a direct link to download the application, exists on a single page.


audio player


It saves you from wasting time and makes you want to download and give it a try. It’s one click away and you know everything that it has to offer, so why not?


Hokrain is completely portable and can be run from a flash drive. Hokrain runs perfectly on any version of Windows, from 98 onward. It’ll cost your disk 600 KB of space and I’ve yet to see it go over about 7 MB in RAM usage. Compared to one of the applications I mentioned earlier, Spotify or iTunes, the difference in resource intensity is extremely significant.


Out of the box, Hokrain’s interface is very simple and clean.


free audio player


One quick glance and you’re able to see practically everything you need to begin listening to your music. Hokrain supports the following formats:



  • MP3

  • MP2

  • MP1

  • MPA

  • OGG

  • WAV

  • AIFF

  • MO3

  • IT

  • XM

  • S3M

  • MTM

  • MOD

  • UMX

  • AAC

  • AC3

  • APE

  • MAC

  • CDA

  • FLAC

  • MIDI

  • MID

  • RMI

  • KAR

  • MPC

  • MP+

  • MPP

  • TTA

  • WMA

  • WV


Navigate to a folder, double-click a track, and it will immediately begin playing.


free audio player


Let’s break down a few of the more interesting parts of the audio player’s interface:



  • Hokrain has a nice CPU usage monitor that shows just how much processing power it is consuming while playing. It’s near the top-right of the interface, and just 0.42% in the above screenshot.

  • Hokrain’s volume slider is very large, running all the way up the right side of the interface. Unlike many audio players, it’s vertical rather than horizontal. Being so large, it really allows you to easily set an exact volume percentage, if you’re into round numbers like me.

  • There is also a quality spectrum that lets you visualize the current track’s visual quality.

  • Below the spectrum, you’re able to graphically seek your track. Some audio players have a simple slider that lets you seek through the track, but a graphical seeker really lets you pinpoint a particular part of a song at just a glance. No more hearing around and wasting time to get to the part of a song that you want.


The application’s settings are filled with goodies. Hokrain comes stocked with six different themes that you can choose from. Here is the Windows XP theme:

free audio player


The General tab offers a lot of information and lets you set more than just your theme. There is an OSD (on-screen display) every time you change tracks to notify you of what is currently being played. It can be turned on or off. You are then able to toy with shell integration options, your tray icon, and a few other small tweaks.


cool audio player


Another great thing about Hokrain lies within the two Hot Keys tabs.


cool audio player


If you’re using a media player, you need to use hotkeys. It’s just that simple. Hokrain supports a ridiculous amount of hotkeys that let you control playing, stopping, pausing, muting, seeking, and plenty more. I’d argue that there are possibly even too many hotkeys!


The coolest part of the settings is something that I’d consider to be a “quality of life” feature, one that isn’t exactly necessary but it’s really nice to have: Scrobbler.


audio player


If you’re not big on Last.fm, Hokrain lets you keep local records on what tracks you play, how long you’ve listened to them, and how many times you’ve played them. You can sort these records to make out what your favorite songs are. It’s just an example of Hokrain thinking outside the box and doing more than the average audio player.


Hokrain is an audio player that I’m happy I’ve found. Even if you’re pleased with your current audio player, it’s a piece of software really worth appreciating. Give it a try and see if you like it. Let me know what you think in the comments!


The post Hokrain Is The Coolest Audio Player That You’ve Never Heard Of [Windows] appeared first on MakeUseOf.



Will Windows 8 Run On My PC? Here’s How to Tell



will windows 8 work on my pcIt’s been about three months since Microsoft released Windows 8, and people have had lots of time to hear about what’s new and decide whether they wish to upgrade. If you have decided to commit to the upgrade, you need to be sure that your system is capable of handling the new software, or else burn a useless hole in your wallet.


Now that the time frame for cheaper Windows 8 upgrades is over, it’s highly important to be certain that such an upgrade will go as smoothly as possible. Therefore, to help you out, here are some tips on determining whether your system can handle the upgrade, and what you can do to improve performance once you’re running Windows 8.


The Requirements


will windows 8 work on my pc

Every piece of software has listed hardware requirements that your system must meet in order to run such software. Windows 8 is no different, but its requirements aren’t as high as past Windows releases. The requirements for Windows 8 include:



  • 1 GHz processor

  • 1 GB of RAM for 32-bit systems, or 2 GB of RAM for 64-bit systems

  • 16 GB of free space for 32-bit systems, or 20 GB of free space for 64-bit systems

  • A graphics card capable of DirectX 9 graphics with WDDM driver


Of course, in order to get the best experience possible, there are a few recommendations that are listed. However, Windows 8 should run just fine if you don’t have any of these:



  • A tablet or monitor that supports multi-touch

  • To access the Windows Store and download and run apps, you need an active Internet connection and a screen resolution of 1024 x 768

  • To “snap” apps, you need a screen resolution of 1366 x 768.


If you do not meet all of the listed requirements, I would suggest looking at upgrading your system’s hardware, if possible. If not, you’ll probably need to look at getting a new system if you are still wanting to run Windows 8. If you do meet the requirements, however, you should run the Windows 8 Upgrade Assistant. This utility will do some extra work to check not only your system’s basic hardware, but also the compatibility of all attached hardware, such as webcams, printers, joysticks, and other peripherals. If the upgrade assistant gives you the green light, you should be in good position to perform an upgrade.


Performing the Upgrade


Once you have the upgrade media (whether it’s a physical disc or the upgrade assistant which will download the upgrade for you after charging you the fee), it’s fairly painless to complete the procedure. The setup wizard asks a minimal amount of questions, and you can even perform a “clean install” upgrade directly from your old Windows, without having to reboot into the installer. Of course, once the upgrade completes, you’ll need to restart in order to do some final cleaning up and launch into the new operating system.


Turn Off Visual Effects


will windows 8 work on my computer

Congratulations, you’re now running Windows 8! If, after the upgrade, your system feels sluggish, you can change a few settings to increase performance. A fair amount of the resources and CPU cycles needed by Windows come from the graphical interface on which you do your work, so it’s a good idea to turn off any fancy graphical effects that aren’t really necessary to stay productive.


To turn these all off to up your system’s performance, begin by opening the Control Panel. You can do this by going into the Start screen by hitting the Start button on your keyboard, and then typing “control panel.” Hitting enter will open the application. From here, click on System and Security –> System –> Advanced system settings. The new window that appears should already be in the Advanced tab. Click on the Settings button under the Performance section at the top of the window. A new Performance Options window should appear which is on the Visual Effects tab. To turn off all the graphical effects, choose the “Adjust for best performance” option. This should help reduce some strain on your CPU, GPU, and RAM.


Increase the Paging File


will windows 8 work on my computer

Another performance trick is to adjust the size of the paging file on your computer. The paging file is a file on your hard drive that is responsible for holding any data that won’t fit into the RAM. In other words, it’s a space on your hard drive that is used as overflow for whenever your RAM is completely used. Conceptually, it is similar to the swap partition for Linux operating systems.


In the same Performance Options window, switch from the Visual Effects tab over to the Advanced tab. Then click on the Change button in the Virtual Memory section at the bottom of the window. Then, in the new window, turn off “automatically manage paging file size for all drives,” and then choosing Custom Size. The size that you put in is really up to you, so it mostly depends on how much RAM is already installed on the system and how much free space you have on your hard drive. As people who would need to do this trick typically have about 1 GB of RAM, I would suggest setting it to at least 2048 MB. Both fields should hold the same number, so that the space is always reserved for the paging file. When you’re done, hit the Set button before closing out of all your opened windows.


Clean Out Your Hard Drive


will windows 8 work on my pc

Last but not least, it’ll also help to clean up some space on your hard drive after performing the upgrade. To open the disk cleaning utility, launch an instance of Windows Explorer by clicking on the folder icon in the taskbar in desktop mode. Then, click on your C: drive from the list in the left panel, and then click on Manage from the ribbon menu. Finally, click on Cleanup to launch the utility. Let it scan through all your files to see what can be removed, and when it opens up the results, click on the “Clean up system files” button to really search through everything. Provided that you have backed up or moved out any files that you may have wanted to keep from your old Windows installation, the disk cleaning utility will clean up all traces of the upgrade, typically reclaiming around 20GB or more.


Conclusion


You also shouldn’t have to worry about defragmenting your hard drive anymore, as Windows 8 does it routinely by default. With these tips on whether an upgrade is feasible, and how to improve performance on systems that barely meet the requirements, you should be on your way to a decent Windows 8 experience based on the hardware that you have. Plus, there are a few more things you can change to make your Windows 8 experience even more enjoyable.


Are you upgrading to Windows 8? What other tips could you offer? Let us know in the comments!


The post Will Windows 8 Run On My PC? Here’s How to Tell appeared first on MakeUseOf.